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Ali
Director: Michael Mann (2001)
Distributor: Columbia Pictures. Certificate: 15
In 1964 the brash, loudmouthed Cassius Clay (Will Smith) turns the boxing world upside down by comprehensively beating the ‘invincible’ Sonny Liston (Michael Bentt) ~ a 1960s version of Mike Tyson at his most fearsome. Clay’s larger than life personality and his unique boxing skills push him into the public gaze where he stirs up a political hornets’ nest. He announces his membership of the Nation of Islam and the relinquishing of his slave name to become Muhammad Ali. His close ties to what is seen as a militant black movement and his outspoken criticism of the Vietnam conflict results in the US government altering Ali’s classification to make him eligible for the draft to the armed forces. Ali refuses and, as a result, has his title taken from him and is sentenced to five years in prison.
Ali avoids being locked up while the appeal process takes its course, but with his passport seized and banned from boxing he is soon broke and left behind by the Nation of Islam who were so keen to be associated with him when things were good. When Ali is eventually allowed to box again he hassles world champion Joe Frazier (James N. Toney) into giving him a shot at the title. A free man following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn his sentence, Ali loses to Frazier over 15 rounds. His next attempt to regain the title comes after Frazier is beaten by George Foreman (Charles Shufford). The film ends with Ali’s astounding, against-the-odds knockout of Foreman on a stormy night in Zaire.
Any attempt to make a film about a living legend, and particularly someone with the charisma of Muhammad Ali, will always present a difficult challenge. When the subject is ‘the greatest’ (self-proclaimed), and the sports personality of the 20th century (publicly acclaimed), the task is even greater. Michael Mann’s film just about pulls it off by examining the period of Ali’s life bounded by his world heavyweight title victories over Sonny Liston and George Foreman.
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Will Smith’s Oscar-deserving portrayal of Ali is captivating to the extent that by the mid-point of the film it feels very much like a fly-on-the-wall documentary of the real Muhammad Ali. Smith has clearly attended to the physical demands of the role as well as the dramatic challenges and you can almost believe that it is Ali in the ring. The Liston, Frazier and Foreman fights are masterfully and realistically re-enacted. |
This film portrayal of a slice of Ali’s life was, apparently, approved by the man himself and reinforces some of the contradictions of his life. He was, for many the greatest boxer in history. Certainly as a heavyweight his speed and grace in the ring is unsurpassed. His ego was outrageous and his public image could not be ignored. Few people were indifferent to Ali; they either loved or hated him. Ali was a man of principle, prepared to give up the richest prize in sport at the peak of his career and go to prison rather than fight for a cause that he did not believe in. He was (and is) a committed Muslim, never wavering from his faith despite the manipulation that he suffered at the hands of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam movement. No punches are pulled about this in the film, neither are Ali’s womanising tendencies hidden and we see him working through the first three of his four marriages.
The film is perhaps a little too long but having said that, Michael Mann succeeds in recreating on screen the central years of the Muhammad Ali phenomenon. On the other hand, Ali fans will leave the cinema wondering how on earth Mann’s film could have ended without including Ali’s epic title defence against Joe Frazier in 1975, ‘A thrilla in Manila’ ~ the fight which many regard as the greatest of his career.
THROUGH THE LENS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH
Putting aside the controversy about boxing in general and concentrating on the subject of the film, Muhammad Ali, we are confronted with a puzzle. It can be stated for certain that he was a superb athlete, possessing great natural gifts along with the discipline to hone his body to perfection. He was also a man with sufficient conviction to walk away from his world title and the wealth that accompanied it rather than compromise his belief about what he regarded as an unjust war in a far away place against people with whom he had no quarrel. Ali is also a follower of Islam.
The other side of Ali portrayed in the film is that of a boastful, self-centred, and sometimes thoughtless man prepared to hurl insults just for the sake of publicity. At times he showed a cruel streak, such as in the taunting of his opponent Ernie Terrell. We also know of his consistent marital unfaithfulness. So which is the real Muhammad Ali? To discover that we must look back from the perspective of our knowledge of Muhammad Ali today, some forty years on from his first professional fight.
Ironically Ali is now almost silent as he lives with the effects of Parkinson’s disease. But he is widely reported to be a man at peace with himself and with God, happily married to his fourth wife, Lonnie. He still commands centre stage wherever he appears as is evident, for example, in the tumultuous reception that he was given when lighting the flame at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and in the standing ovations that he received as numerous end-of-the-century awards were bestowed on him. Ali continues as a tireless ambassador for Islam and his involvement in charitable causes remains undimmed.
In retrospect, Ali was a unique person with feet of clay (no pun intended). Just like all of us. It is simply that his fame ensured that his strengths and weaknesses were equally available to the public gaze. There is a conflict present in each of us between doing what God calls us to, and giving in to selfish desires. St Paul, one of the greatest followers of Jesus, was well aware of this:
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do . . . For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do ~ this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it” (Romans 7.15-20).
It is part of our human nature to be pulled in different directions by our selfish desires on the one hand, and our longing to do God’s will on the other. We will sometimes know what is right but choose what is wrong. Undoubtedly we will make mistakes and sometimes our actions will hurt others. The difference between us and Muhammad Ali is simply that our failings are not paraded on the world stage.
The true measure of our faith will be the extent to which we are able to acknowledge our faults, seek the forgiveness of God and ~ where necessary ~ the forgiveness of those we have hurt, and move on. This is the heart of the gospel message, the opportunity to begin again, knowing that our mistakes in the past are not held against us by God as grudges in the present. Such are the depths of God’s love and grace.
